How did we get Stewart's interview so wrong?

The two main charges against Stewart are that he is defending the Bush administration, and drawing a false equivalence between FOX and MSNBC. It's my respectful submission that neither of these charges are true. At all. Some statements snipped from the main interview but available on Maddow's site show this best.

On war criminal accusations:



On bias in cable news:



Now there are two problems with media today. One is to create a truly false equivalence. To say that Clinton and Thomas are the same as far as sexual harassment goes is plainly inaccurate. It is likewise plainly inaccurate to say that Obama is as criminal in his conduct of the wars as Bush. But Clinton isn't a saint, and Obama's war policies are often hideous in their disregard for due process and civil liberties. There has to be a way between claiming that two different cases are the same and claiming that only one side's bad actions warrant consistent attention.

Finally, on FOX vs. MSNBC:



Stewart acknowledges the difference in quantity and quality of bias between FOX and MSNBC. But you can't ignore that some of the bad habits of FOX are clearly represented in MSNBC. The same focus and expenditure of air-time on the trivial narratives, the same inclination to pass over similar if lesser crimes for our side, while constantly hammering those of the other. One side will be mocking Sarah Palin tweets, Juan Williams and a nobody Florida pastor, the other will be telling us how Bill Ayers, ACORN, Sharia law and birth certificates will destroy us all.

A thread that encapsulated some of this for me on DU was the one excoriating the lack of prior office holders in the freshmen GOP legislators. It's ridiculous. Paul Wellstone likewise had held no office prior to his election in '90. Being a relative neophyte is not bad in and of itself--there are plenty of horrible things about these incoming congresspeople to point out, but instead we are inclined to reach for the superficial narrative of inexperience and ignorance, even if the substance of the charge doesn't really point to anything terrible. You can -certainly- produce evidence of ignorance, but a lack of prior office, lack of passport, whatever--those are hardly sufficient, and are not evidence of awfulness at all. They are only used to fulfill a sneering narrative, we know they are bad, so even the innocuous constitutes irrefutable proof of evil.

Does any of that make sense?

He is a comedian whose trade is built on parody. While I share the frustration when he seemingly straddles the fence, I understand why he does so. Our expectations get away from us, sometimes...

Just not of the exact stripe some wish for. If you've watched his show over the years, there is absolutely no equivalence in his vitriol toward FOX and MSNBC, or toward Obama and Bush, or toward the Democrats and Republicans. But he doesn't hand out passes, and doesn't always frame criticism in the most pleasing narrative for one side or the other.

are not hidden but he is not going to become a Mike Malloy. I understand what he is doing and why. I do not doubt he believes as we do and might well be just as vocal in his personal "space."

That's just a way to dodge responsibility.

To compare Jon Stewart with Rush Limbaugh? Ridiculous and if serious, then, seriously DISGUSTING. :eyes:

which is what Stewart did.

But, that is not exactly what Jon was doing. I know on a exceedingly simplistic level it might seem so, but it REALLY wasn't. That said, I will defend KO (Rachel and others) fervently and likewise disagree with anyone making any kind of equivalency in rhetoric between the "Left" and the "Right." Jon may have done so in terms of tenor and hyperbole (which I disagree with), but I do not believe he meant to do so in terms of tactics. I do not believe he was truly equating KO with GB.

He's seems to feel that is exactly what Stewart did.

and I don't think he is taking it personally.

without demonizing him nor concluding he is against us. Despite the RW attempt to convince us so, all things are not black and white.

And since when are Keith and Bill Maher right wing?

?????? You seem to be arguing things I never said, implied, nor believe. Have a good night but I'm done.

"I can disagree with Jon's suggestion of false equivalency in rhetoric without demonizing him nor concluding he is against us. Despite the RW attempt to convince us so, all things are not black and white."

No one in the RW accused Stewart of a false equivalency, Keith and Bill Maher did. So either your saying that Keith and Bill Maher are RW or you don't know what you're talking about. Which is it?

You apparently can not (or refuse to) understand what I am saying, preferring to pick a fight by intentionally misconstruing what I said, adding your adhominem attack. I give up. Please consider further posts from you ignored.

not the other way around and you keep changing the argument. Maybe I would understand what you're trying to say if you made a more coherent argument. Right now all I've seen is you saying black everytime I say white.

I saw the interview and saw no problem with it. But the reviews coming in along with the broadcast--uniformly hostile to Stewart.

got it so wrong.

no one takes the time to look @ things in context nor do they take the effort to digest before vomiting bullshit.

they want everything cut up into tiny pieces so they don't have to work @ doing anything.

:thumbsup:

Comparing the measures President Obama is using (although I don't agree with them) to the wanton criminality of Bush is unreasonable, not to mention, stupid on its face. Barack Obama has not devised a worldwide torture program and when asked, his whole administration has not lied about it.

The interview is littered with these ridiculous comparisons, like his comparison of Code Pink and the Tea baggers, and of MSNBC and Fox.

Stewart's judgment was rightfully called into question.

And in addition to his lack of a sense of proportion, he condescended to Rachel through out the interview. As gracious as she is, all you have to do is watch her face while she listens to him to get it, from his early "seminal thrust" comment to the gratuitous, "I like you" late in the interview. I hope that was only the Nyquil talking.

They aren't equivalent, they aren't the same, but they both merit attention. There is no integrity in accusing Bush of being a war criminal if we let Obama slide on continuing even a few of the policies that make up the accusation. That's not stupid on its face at all.

to Obama's own practices (in the example of human rights abuse and torture) when we DO give attention to those practices.

Forget stupid. Let's go with dishonest.

The very same people who did protest Bush's torture program are protesting Obama's practices. And those people were never the corporate media. It was never MSNBC, it was always posters here like me and Solly Mack, the real journalists like Amy Goodman and Andy Worthington and real activists like Code Pink and World Can't Wait with Amnesty International and the UN Special Rapporteur. None of us have stopped or have given Obama a break when we find out that he's still got a black site at Bagram.

It looks like Jon doesn't know who is protesting Obama's actions around rendition and abuse and torture because he watches too much corporate bs instead of following the issue. That's on him.

He's wrong. Maybe the next time Solly or I post a thread about Bagram and people accuse us of hating Obama, lol, you can kick the thread.

And you know what? From what I've seen, he's exactly right.

and Joe does it every morning. He's full of it.

ETA: And that misses the larger point. No one in the corporate media really took on Bush's torture program. But that's Jon. He misses the bigger picture.

They'll spend more time talking about Bush's book than about Obama's drone attacks in Pakistan and Yemen by -civilian- pilots. They'll yoke, flog and drive every word of that waste of paper for hours, while spending maybe one segment on Obama's continued wiretapping, continued extraordinary rendition, continued pursuit of assassination and detention with no due process for US citizens, etc., etc. According to MSNBC, the plagiarist rambling of two worthless Yalies, telling us things they've already told us again and again, is worth more time then civilians killing kids in Pakistan by remote control.

Meanwhile they'll never miss a chance to gloat over Palin tweets, and will seize on the innocuous nothings of idiotic nobodies to drive home a narrative of stupidity in the GOP.

If you think that's right, you're welcome to your bizarre sense of proportion and morality in news.

His claim was that we give a pass to the people we agree with. And that's not true. The left famously doesn't give a pass to the left on these issues.

Second, both Keith and Rachel have talked about all of those issues. Maybe the easiest way to find those shows is to look for the under-the-bus threads here at DU.

And, reducing the as yet un-indicted torture president to "a plagiarist" shows the same lack of proportion Stewart shows.

Jon Stewart is just wrong. He lives in some bubble where the left and the right mirror each other. That's lazy and inaccurate.

We're awash in sexist and homophobic insults, insults for which people on DU and people like Olbermann would call Scott Brown an advocate of violence toward women, simply because the guy didn't react when someone yelled one out in his crowd. Yet it's fine to direct sexist comments at Palin, or homophobic insults at any GOP figure.

The point of the "plagiarist" comment is that they'll spend all damn day talking about shit we already know, just because it's been published in a lousy plagiarized book, rather than focus on the crimes going on in the wars today. You can't ignore that, but DU and MSNBC do so at will.

The point of Stewart is that while not commensurate, the left and right are engaging in the same shit. That's exactly right. Being stupid and belligerent isn't laudable just because the other side is vastly more stupid and absolutely more belligerent.

And Democrats are certainly attacked on DU all the time as well. I think Stewart's point was about demonizing. The way it is done is you take one comment, and that one comment is taken to define the entire career and character of the person. It only takes one slip of the tongue or pen to prove one of our enemies is a demon. Yet most people really are not demons which we seem to realize when people on our side make bad statements, such as Jesse Jackson or Joe Biden.

Even worse though, some people are quite willing to throw former allies under the bus. Stewart is now considered a demon, apparently, by large groups of DUers. Somerby, too, is said to have gone over to the 'dark side'.

It's part of the whole Jets and Sherks thing, in my view. You are either with the Jets, or you are with the Sharks, and anybody who is not a Jet is 99.44% evil and deserves to get stomped. Cracko-jacko!!

That is, giving fellow Progressives a pass when they are just as culpable as Rethugs. I've done it many times over the last few years. Probably too much (God help me!)

One quick example:

I did it with AL GORE:

Yeah, I was one of the raging assholes defending Al Gore even AFTER the Tennessee Center for Policy Research published the gas and electric bills for his 20-room home and pool house. Remember that? No? Well, here's a little refresher for you...

Turns out Gore's home guzzled nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, which is more than 20 times the national average. So there he was flying all around the country telling US how to live, and meanwhile he had a bigger carbon footprint than you and 20 OF YOUR NEIGHBORS.

So yes, the Inconvenient Truth of it was, I defended the prick.

Jp and Jon Stewart are absolutely right: Unless we can monitor our own hypocrisy, we are no better than Republicans.

with the left. These groups overlap but they aren't the same one.

.

Stewart was a smug out of touch millionaire.

but Somersby went over the darkside over a year ago and after seeing Stewart's interview it seems he's headed in that direction too.

that's how it went wrong.

:shrug:

I believe Stewart is every bit as Naive as Obama...Sometimes when people are wrong or criminal it needs to be pointed out. Doing that does not make the person pointing it out the same..If I witness a crime and report it to the police, that does not put me in the same catagory as the criminal...Stewart seems to say we should just be quiet about the crimes we witness for the sake of "everyone needs to just get along" MSNBC, at least a few shows on that channel, does exactly that.. They REPORT on behavior they find either criminal or indecent.. Fox on the other hand commits the crimes or the indecent behavior and fails to REPORT anything..As far as stopping the conversation when you say Bush* is a "War Criminal', I don't want a conversation about it, I want justice. Stewart seems to believe it is a debatable subject. It is not.. War Crimes were commited and Bush* authorized them. Plain fact and he even brags about it..There is no debate..

that interview.

His idea that the fundamental divide in politics is not partisan, but rather the corrupt vs. non-corrupt is about as simplistic and useless as saying that there are good and bad people out there.

can be completely wrong sometimes.
:applause: for you.

a formal debate class and pay attention.

From what I have read here on DU, many people don't even know what subject JS was talking about.

Your reference to the false equivalence Stewart created between Slappy Thomas and President Clinton more or less bears that out, as does his innate suggestion that we are "fighting Fox with Fox." We aren't. Fox uses untruths and wholesale fantasies. Our side, be it Rachel, Keith or even Ed (for whom I bear no great respect; separate topic) works the factual side of the street while GlenBeck shows people imagined images of the "Tower of Babel" and holds them out as actual representaitons. There's a BIG difference.

Secondly, I don't think "excoriating" incoming GOP frosh for "ignorance" is at all wrong. In this age, ignorance isn't bliss; it's potentially deadly. Hammering on the ignorance of a RandPaul or an AllenWest is no vice. There is no such thing, to my mind, as "superficial ignorance." Beauty may be only skin deep with these TeaBaggers, but Teh Stoopid goes clean to the bone.

Ultimately, this isn't a matter of disliking Jon Stewart. I, for one, like his work and enjoy his humor. I don't think I've ever laughed harder than at his bit where he brought in the faux-gospel choir. That's all it is, though: humor. Mr. Stewart appears to have reserved the right to do to public figures of his choosing what he stated he doesn't want anyone else doing. To me, that's a tad hypocritical. I've never much cared for "Do-As-I-Say-Not-As-I-Do" philosophies.

"Okay ladies, here is your approved response: All men should be equally villified when they're naughty.

Any questions?"


Give me a break. That is condescending claptrap. Women aren't children, most of us can discern the difference between the two mens' actions. WE don't need Stewart to chastise us for not responding "correctly."

My lib friends and I laughed our asses off when the Right expressed outrage over we feminists not getting our panties in a twist over Clinton's affair(s).

Jesus H. on a Hockey Stick. People cheat. Men cheat. Women cheat.

What Clinton did was between CONSENTING ADULTS. Wrong? Sure. Human? Definitely.


As for Thomas, if anyone here wants to claim that Anita Hill was a willing participant in the degrading manner in which she was treated, they are probably a sexual harrasser themselves.

In fact, all of the women who have come forward have claimed they were humiliated and embarrassed and outraged at Clarence's disgusting verbal proclivities. None of them claimed to have "consented." They were victims of his foul mouth and his poor impulse control.


Monica Lewinsky was a WILLING participant, on the other hand.


In this case, it's Stewart who is stereotyping women to fit some model he has in his head. If a man cannot see the difference between what consenting adults do versus what a person does to someone whoo is NOT willing, we have worse problems than beating up on "poor Jon Stewart."

...Stewart was talking about what the television networks do with that information.

That point is being missed in this thread.

.

But, if he is talking about what the networks do, he needs to produce evidence that a left wing network exists. Three hours on MSNBC in a 24 hour news cycle is not exactly some overwhelming proof for his argument, especially considering that that channel starts off the day with three hours of a right wing show.

Then, he needs to produce some explanation for comparing a consensual relationship to sexual harassment in the work place.

Then, he needs to explain why Bill Clinton was attacked for months on the networks and finally, impeached but Clarence Thomos wound up as a Supreme Court justice despite his serial offenses.

The evidence doesn't show what Jon claims it shows.

I couldn't sit through it again so I'm responding with day-old impressions. As far as his "terms slipping all over the place", I agree. I kept wondering if he was high as he wasn't making his point very clearly. But it's clear today that it was a hard point to make.

He didn't have sound-bites prepared probably because he was taken aback at the response of the left...surprised that they didn't get the message of the rally. After all, we've always said that MSM is deluding the masses......whether in the name of corporatism, religion or politics. Just because MSNBC uses some progressive on-air personalities, promotes some progressive issues and injects some balance into the dialogue, doesn't mean they're above reproach.

"Then, he needs to produce some explanation for comparing a consensual relationship to sexual harassment in the work place."

My impression is that he was comparing the extraordinary fuss created by the mass media over illict sexual relationships and not the finer details about which, he says, we don't need to know, in the larger context of American culture.

What I have noticed in my time here is that Americans take their television seriously. Little tidbits of support here and there, bring liberals to their feet cheering. That's what Stewart was trying to get across.

.

and come to such different conclusions.

Reread the quotes in the OP:


"Bill Clinton, if he were a Republican, would be strung up by the ladies at NOW," (emphasis mine.)


NOW is a womens rights organization, not "the media."

In this case, a consensual relationship with sexual harassment.

Oh, :puke:

I really cannot fathom why otherwise intelligent people like Stewart cannot discern the difference, or even why they lump "bad things that happen when women are involved" into some who-gives-a-shit category where a canned, pre-programmed response is the only allowable or necessary one.

So many minds, so little depth...but then i don't look to Stewart for any guidance, only a laugh now and then. I don't even have TV here in hillbilly heaven....

...look I think the guy is funny but MSNBC = FOX is bullshit. Bill Clinton = Clarence Thomas? I don't fucking think so.

It's NOT about defending 'teammates' it's about calling a spade a spade.

He is STILL completely wrong.

He never said a thing about moral equivalency. However, the volume is high on both sides. I'm aware and obviously so is Jon Stewart that the right is almost constantly attacking with emotional outbursts and the left is almost constantly responding with facts, snark, and ridicule. It really isn't about which side is right or wrong any more on the "news" shows. It is about sustaining the emotional fever pitch on the right (why "content-free" slurs like socialist, nazi, etc. are used there) and it is also about sustaining the intellectual disdain on the left.
The left is correct on almost every issue of course, but that is not the point. I've personally been "right" in a lot of arguments and totally lost because I mistakenly thought that was all that mattered. In fact, there is no end to any argument until the emotions and the facts are all addressed.
I do believe the right cynically began attacking and playing shamelessly on the fears, anxieties, and worse thoughts of the american people. That has had horrible consequences for our democracy. However, I don't think the left's solution of shouting back "liar liar, here are the facts" works. All that happens is we become more polarized and less inclined to work with the other side.
If the left maybe spent a little less time defending itself and instead just went about doing (instead of just talking about) the important things like improving health care, making taxes more progressive, reining in corporations, etc. then people would not be hurting so much and not nearly so vulnerable to the emotional manipulation of the right.

a real grassroots group and astroturf or between a relationship and harassment.

lol

And yielding the media battle to the right has gotten us exactly here.

"Diarrhea describes bowel movements (stools) that are loose and watery. It is very common and usually not serious. Many people will have diarrhea once or twice each year. It typically lasts two to three days and can be treated with over-the-counter medicines. Others have diarrhea often as part of irritable bowel syndrome or other chronic diseases of the large intestine."

http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/digestive-diseases-diarrhea

a package of near thought as Jon did the other night, they generously attribute nuance and subtlety where there was mostly incoherence.

to a very corporate friendly and people agnostic on the best of days couple of feet of real estate.

It also gives the radical regressives a pass, in a "boys will be boys fashion" and just telling the truth about their shitty ways results in being down in the muck playing childish games.

I see no reason to echo this tortured bullshit or to refrain from rejecting it out of hand in this whacked out environment.

It is a gawdawful mass message and I repudiate it from wherever it pops up because the possible benefit is well short of potential harm.